00:00:00 Speaker 1
You guys got to understand, effective dates are nine times out of ten even harder to find and get right than the actual rating itself.
00:00:12 Speaker 2
If you don't know where to go and find those answers, that's a huge problem. You're going to be highly frustrated because when they do that rating decision in the narrative, they list these thirty eight C F R this thirty eight C F R that was used to deny your claim. A lot of vets don't even look it up.
00:00:29 Speaker 1
You are going to be able to find all the breakdown on how it is governed in regulation and legislation, and how they interpret it. Being able to navigate that, you are going to be able to understand exactly what the regs state. Knowing your regs, you know everything.
00:00:47 Speaker 2
The more you know, the better you are going to be able to equip yourself with the knowledge to go in and advocate for yourself before the VA. Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Dwayne. I got a video for that Kimball United States Army veteran, retired B eight rating specialist and your VA claim nugget man. And I am joined today by Kenneth Davis.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
CEO of Veterans for Veterans. A former VA raider and also a US Navy veteran.
00:01:26 Speaker 2
Mr. Davis, it's a pleasure as always to do another collaboration. And today, we are going to be talking about the thirty eight CFR. Why veterans need to understand this. Can you let everyone know where they could find you on YouTube? What is your YouTube handle?
00:01:48 Speaker 1
Please you can find us at Prepare To Compete. You can find us there on YouTube, or you can find us at bestforvetsconsulting.com online as well, and also info at bestforvets.com. That'll be again info at bestforvets.com and also prepare to compete where you can find more informative videos and educational videos for our channel as well.
00:02:12 Speaker 2
All right sounds good. So thirty eight C F R use the rate Mr Davis. How did you find the thirty eight C F R when you rated? Did you find it helpful when you were adjudicating veterans claims?
00:02:34 Speaker 1
Navigating the thirty eight C F R I, you definitely needed it. However, I had a special way of walking to a secondary cubicle with leadership, and they were a thirty eight C F R encyclopedia that I knew. That always gave me basic navigation, which would help me navigate the thirty eight C F R. But over time, you get to really understand it and break it down. So it was a really great opportunity to understand, obviously, regulation.
00:03:04 Speaker 2
Right. So Mister Davis for the ones that don't know what C F R stands for? Can you explain what C F R stands for?
00:03:11 Speaker 1
Of course. So again, the C F R is the code of the federal reserve system. The C F P is the code that's used in the United States to identify a specific type of financial institution. And the C F R is the code of federal regulations. And this here it governs all VA benefits or veterans benefits that's going to be able to outline whether if it's burial, whether if it's VBA, whether if it's VHA. You're going to be able to find all the breakdown on how it is governed again in regulation and legislation and how they interpret it. So again, being able to navigate that, you're going to be able to understand exactly what the regs state. And knowing your regs, you know everything.
00:03:47 Speaker 2
And, that's one thing that I tell people : the VA is giving us the answers in plain sight. But if you don't know where to go and find those answers, that's a huge problem, And you are going to be highly frustrated because when they do that rating decision in the narrative, They list these thirty eight CFR. This thirty eight CFR that was used to deny your claim. A lot of vets don't even look it up. I had a client one time.
00:04:17 Speaker 2
And he was saying, 'Dwayne, they put these thirty eight CFRs in my decision.' And I said, 'Well, give them to me.' I looked them up. Guess what? They had nothing to do with the reason why they denied it. I am like, 'This is crazy!' It's like they just picked certain thirty eight CFRs out of the air. Guess what? A lot of veterans don't think to be like, 'Oh well okay,' they denied me. Let me read this narrative. Let me look at these thirty eight CFRs that they're saying they use to justify the denial. You know what I had to do, Mister Davis? Had to do a video on it. But I used that thirty eight CFR. When we would take that biannually test. It was like a three hundred word test, because back then you had to pass that test.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
Call yourself a journeyman R V S R right? You got to pass the test just to get that title. But what I need you to do at this time, Mister Davis, is go to the no va dot benefits and I want you to put me to the test and come up with a topic where I have to find the thirty eight C F R. Any topic you know, it could be tropical diseases, whatever. I am going to share my screen right here. Veterans, this is something that I used a lot when I was a raider to get to the thirty eight CFR a lot faster. And this has really gotten better over the years because it has. You mentioned we got burial benefits, compensation and pension. That's what we're going to stick with e benefits, which I don't think they had an e-commerce site or anything like that.
00:06:09 Speaker 2
The education service, judiciary, home loan guarantee, life insurance a lot of information. And I tell veterans, "Look, I don't care if you are working with a company VSO claims agent or an attorney; you need to be in here. You need to be in here." So without any further ado, Mister Dave just give me a hot topic. I can find it thirty eight point four. Let me put my glasses on first.
00:06:36 Speaker 1
Ooh, there's so many. But what I will, how about this? I want to start with one of my favorites. I want to start with one of my. How about three point four? Let's not go. Let's not exactly because I know how to navigate anymore. What about effective dates? Can we do effective dates there?
00:07:02 Speaker 2
I think I had that pulled up already. I must have been doing something. Let's try to find effective dates.
00:07:10 Speaker 2
One thing to point out, people. I think I must have done a video. You can see I already did a search for that. If you type in and you previously looked for a topic, like in this case, effective dates, and you select this right here, I am going to show you all something—a little trick that I learned when I was a raider. Here we go! So it worked before, if you selected some out of that black box, you wouldn't get the highlight behind the words. So I guess they updated okay, which is a good thing. So we're looking go ahead, Miss Davis.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
Oh no, I am just saying it was a great thing
00:07:52 Speaker 2
Most definitely. Here is a thirty eight C F R that covers effective dates. Before I click on that effective date thirty eight C F R, I want to look at. We have thirty eight C F R three point four hundred through thirty eight C F R three point four zero five. I want to look at the manual reference. I want to see what's in here. We have general guidance assigned of effective dates. We got impact of intent to file effective dates for direct service connection and secondary presumptive increase effective dates based on a change of law or regulation. Which is I want to say that's the liberalizing law if I am not mistaken. Correct.
00:08:38 Speaker 2
Then claims for earlier effective dates. And then here is some more information. And again, you can see where having this highlighted in yellow really helps out. And so I am looking at this. What is that right there? Thirty eight C F R three point four hundred thirty eight C F R three point five hundred. That's probably has nothing to do with service connection. I am sorry effective date. So let's go back, and we're going to click on this right here. And so these are different topics: effective dates, general veterans, surviving spouse, children, parents. Click on "general." It's going to bring up another screen: Code of Federal Regulations. And there is a lot of information here. And this is where I try to educate veterans to empower them.
00:09:36 Speaker 2
Not to be afraid to come here and look at this information. Because a lot of vets say, 'Oh, I should have been granted an earlier effective date back to this date based on what thirty eight Cfr.' So come here and look at this because I've seen effective dates. And help me out here. Probably showing my age how long ago I rated effective date. You have the intent to file date, and a lot of veterans probably don't even know this affects the date data claim. And we'll talk about that in a minute. And then date facts found or date entitlement arose. Do you remember assigning some of those effective dates? Date entitlement arose, date facts found when you actually rate it.
00:10:31 Speaker 1
Of course. This here, and I want to give context to veterans a bit before I go on. You guys got to understand effective dates are nine times out of ten even harder to find and get right than the actual rating itself because it's so difficult. Definitely if you are a continuous prosecution veteran. If you are a veteran who has provided a Q, an unmistakable error or a Q rather, or even a let's say like you said liberalizing, when the actual law changes what happens then. How are you provided effective? It's so difficult and sometimes again it's not black and white. This is one of the most.
00:11:30 Speaker 1
Areas that raiders get in trouble. When applying effective dates, when you talk about the date that the title enrollment rolls or regular even regular increases, you may even get tripped up on right? Because you got to understand veterans. When you actually go to the facility and talk about the issues that you're dealing with, that may be your effective date rather than the actual submission of your actual data claim. It's so many different ways on how to look at it. Providing great rationale and getting here in the thirty eight C F R right here at three point four hundred, it will always put you in the right direction as Mister Kimball was navigating it now.
00:12:11 Speaker 2
And you gave a good example about the increase. If you go off the evidence within the VA's control, which is the VA medical record. Let's say you're service connected for thirty percent for PTSD, and in your notes from December twenty-three, you show the criteria for fifty percent. If you attempt to file the following year and submit a prescribed claim form, even though that information is within the VA's control, you could possibly assign that earlier effective date.
00:12:53 Speaker 2
And that's where I think a lot of it when they don't know and a lot of their VSOs and maybe some claims agents don't know or don't take the time to do that research. The veteran is okay with that effective date when they actually could have done a higher review and said, 'Hey, X Y and Z I should have been awarded an effective date based on my increase date. Facts found on this date because it meets the criteria for the higher percentage.' That's an argument they can make on a higher review. And so that's on my channel I like to approach it from the educational standpoint. The more you know, the better you are going to be able to equip yourself with the knowledge to go in and advocate for yourself before the VA.
00:13:43 Speaker 1
And I'll add there when we talk about being an advocate, the first step is being an advocate for yourself. That's number one. Second step is getting the professional help that you need to be able to take it further. Now Mr. Kimball pointed out a great point of taking it to a higher level review and appeal. But now you can even take it further. And take it to the Board of Veterans Appeals. And when we talk about effective dates, regulation may state one thing.
00:14:21 Speaker 1
But as you mentioned, dates. Facts found can actually put you in a position to get even a better effective date based upon the judge's interpretation. Interpretation of the law and regulation is number one, because when we talk about interpretation, interpretation could mean different things for different people. So you have to be careful when you talk about effective dates. It is not what you feel; it is what the law states and what you find.
00:14:53 Speaker 2
And the hardest time. And I'll pose this question to you as well, Mister Davis. The hardest time I had with effective dates is when I was rating Nemer cases back in August twenty ten, and I did that for a whole year.
00:15:11 Speaker 1
You explain what the Nemer cases are?
00:15:14 Speaker 2
So Nemer is crazy because it came out. Even the pact act was August, what August twenty August.
00:15:21 Speaker 1
October two thousand and twenty two.
00:15:24 Speaker 2
Nemer August twenty ten. I don't know if it was the tenth. I have to look that up. I might do a search in uh in the manual reference, but yeah, I know it was August twenty ten. And, what that mean was they came? Uh they added three conditions to thirty eight C F R three point three zero, nine sub part eight. I always remember that because I worked those Nemer cases, For a whole year, and one of those conditions was a stemic heart disease. And so, What that meant was any veteran that qualified for Asia orange exposure, and they had now have a diagnosis for stemic heart disease, they can be service connected. But, the VA took it a step further ;. They said, we're going to go all the way back. And we're going to be looking for claims where veterans.
00:16:17 Speaker 2
Were previously denied, and one of those claims, I think I went back to nineteen eighty two, and I had to do a stage rating. So if you looked at this veteran's rating code sheet, there were several different percentages and about ten or twelve different effective dates. So I am looking through all the evidence that he submitted, all the VA progress notes. Mess level was three here; two years later it was at a seven. Oh that was a stent that he had a mess level two. So I was going back and forth. And so when it came to name cases, I got really good at assigning those effective dates. And I am telling you, when you were stage rating like that, you are on pins and needles because I was scared that the QRT team was going to pull it. If I would have had one of those effective dates wrong, even though we were giving that vet like three hundred four hundred thousand, that was going to lower.
00:17:16 Speaker 2
My overall quality, so I am gonna pay as a needle. If you are just dealing with one effective date, like you said earlier. Effective dates can be really hard, especially when veterans submit thousand fifteen hundred pages. Now it's like you are looking through a needle in a haystack and you find it. What's the effective date? When was there a time when one of if you can remember. One of the hardest times that it took you to assign an effective date for a veteran a grant.
00:17:55 Speaker 1
Ooh, I have one in particular. You mentioned and I do want to address this. You mentioned something so profound right in regards to the education portion. You mentioned stage rating veterans a stage rating is going to position you where you can actually get. A higher or lower rating based upon the current severity of your service connected issue at that time. And now it may change in regards to the date and also the percentage that's assigned. So if you have again mention a ischemic heart disease, you may have the qualification to receive ten percent. And it may go up to fifty percent a year later on. So that is very powerful for you.
00:18:42 Speaker 1
But also it could hurt you too, based upon how it is interpreted. As Miss Kimball said, it is stressful trying to get an effective date correct. You will literally spend a week on a claim getting an effective date. Correct, right? Because you'll have to go back and forth and get the different opinions because it gets so complicated. Mentioning one of the case files, we had a veteran who was basically having financial instability, and now with that financial instability, it was sent up to the appeals management office. There is a lot of cases that are pushed by their congressman or congresswoman. So anytime we have a case filed that is high visibility.
00:19:41 Speaker 1
A monster political matter where you have to push it, and we have to get it out. But this veteran has been fighting this case, and at the time, let's say again, it's around twenty fifteen. They've been fighting this case over and over again on a regular basis since about the nineties. And continuously being denied. I'm seeing a denial, but for some odd reason the judge thought otherwise. They didn't grant the benefit, but when you grant the benefit and this was a benefit based upon cancer, you know how difficult that is, because it's based upon active cancer or remission. And at the time the veteran has active remission and it goes on. But then having to find out the effective date because they just said it's a grant. That's all they say.
00:20:40 Speaker 1
You go figure it out. I had to go all the way back to nineteen ninety all the way up, and when I tell you, it was one of the most difficult effective dates that I still got wrong because it was a stage rating, and I must admit our shortcomings as well, right? Again, they pulled the QRT stage rating again, bringing it down from one hundred percent down to ten percent based upon current remission issues at the moment. And then next thing you know, it should have stayed the hundred percentile. So again, like I said, when you have to go back that far, it becomes difficult.
00:21:33 Speaker 1
To understand when is effective date, when is staged, when they're not. And they don't give you more points just because you have to or more authorized time to effectively rate the case file. You just need to do it in a timely manner because you have been trained all across the country to be able to do this. That was a very difficult thing. And again, sometimes it just sits in your lap. But I'll tell you right now, I'll be very transparent. It's set in my queue for a few weeks because going back and forth, you just don't know. And this is not just myself. We had the whole entire team come help me come check this out. But yeah, that was one of the most difficult case files I had to deal with.
00:22:24 Speaker 2
And I just recorded a video today talking about production quotas. You mentioned it. You don't get excluded time. So you are sitting there and check this out. And I am going to throw a twist in there. And luckily, the cancer did metastasize because now you are looking at secondary and you got to figure out that effective date when you grant. So that's why I tell veterans like, in that video, I don't want to give away too many nuggets, but I am like one way that you can help these VA employees out. You got to understand one thing here is a quota.
00:23:00 Speaker 2
And it could have an impact on your claim, depending on where they're at in that biweekly time period and where they're at with their quota. How can you help them out? Don't just send two or three thousand pages of evidence and be like, "Oh, they have to read it." I am not reading that because I am going to get way behind on my quota. And it could just sit there. I talked about this in a video; it's just going to sit there. That's what they don't get. A lot of veterans don't get it, and a lot of representatives, VSOS attorneys, they don't get it. I'll get to it when I get to it, but I have to make sure I am meeting my production. I didn't tell them that, but I am like I have to meet my production quota and serve the vet at the same time. So there is a little bit of a balancing act that I have to do with that. And I think that is something that veterans don't.
00:23:57 Speaker 2
Here, because I don't hear other people talking about it on YouTube, and they don't understand it. So I always tell veterans to put that VA employee, whether it be a VSR, RVR, even a drove. If you are doing a high level review, put them in a position to say yes the first time. You know, not saying it's a guarantee, but you know do your due diligence. Before we wrap up, Mister Davis, I'll give you the last word. Wait, what? Part of wisdom can you provide to veterans is going to see this video about the thirty eight CFR.
00:24:36 Speaker 1
I'll just really echo what you just stated here. You have to understand that thirty eight CFR is one of the most complex documents or transactional platforms that it is so complex that goes over all. Benefits or regulatory information amongst the government, not just VA benefits, right? We have to really understand. However, veterans, you need to educate yourself because if you don't educate yourself, who's going to advocate better than you for you? No one. You have to educate and advocate for self.
00:25:24 Speaker 1
Again, a self reliance and also due diligence. You have the skills. You have again the autonomy and you actually know what happened to you. Be that person who you need yourself to be that you will be for others. And I'll tell you right now, if you do your due diligence and have an organized case file, you just may come across a rater that just says, "Hey, they helped me out. Let me help them out." Because they pointed out three point four hundred. They pointed out three point four five nine. They pointed out they're pointing out the actual regulations, but also beyond the regulations because you did your due diligence. You're not saying you have to be a rater, or you have to really understand it down to the morsel. You're just saying just know what you're getting into.
00:26:23 Speaker 1
But beyond that, let's make sure that you provide an organized file because you just may again win.
00:26:33 Speaker 2
There it is. And we'll leave it there for the day. So again, Mrs. Davis, thank you for joining me and recording this video. People, we're going to have a video every month on a particular topic. So if there's something that you would like us to discuss, make sure you leave a comment in the comment section, and we'll do a research and we'll see about recording a video on that particular topic. So with that being said, make sure you like, subscribe, hit that notification button and as always, share this video with your fellow veterans. Thank you.
